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| Therese Bombardier (left) and Kathie Wheadon-Hore show off one of the new "Idle-Free" signs (Nick Pearce photo) |
That’s why Dalhousie has prepared new anti-idling guidelines for vehicles operating on campus. They suggest that passenger-sized vehicles should be shut-down whenever idling periods are expected to exceed one minute; for larger vehicles, three minutes. (You can download the document at the Office of Sustainability website.)
The guidelines have been approved by the university’s Parking and Security Committee as well as the Vice-President Finance and Administration, and will be promoted with the installation of “Idle-Free” signs across campus this fall - upwards of 20 in total. The first of these will be posted outside Dalplex, identified as one of Dalhousie’s idling “hot spots” by the Office of Sustainability last year.
“Last summer I spent most of my time researching ‘idle free,’” says Derek Robinson, a third-year community design student and staff member with the Office of Sustainability. “Myself and another student looked not only at policies and programs we could implement, but also did observations across campus.”
It doesn’t surprise Kathie Wheadon-Hore that Dalplex is one of the worst places for idling on campus. As the senior manager of facility operations for Dalhousie Athletics – as well as a representative on the Parking and Security Committee – she regularly sees cars parked waiting to pick up Dalplex patrons, lowering the air quality for people inside the building.
“Obviously we have a wide range of demographics coming in and out of Dalplex,” she says. “I don’t think people realize that the fumes from their engines go into the building, where people work and use our facilities. The more informed people are, the better decisions we hope they’ll make.”
The new anti-idling program is a partnership with DriveWiser, a fuel-efficiency program run through Clean Nova Scotia that provides drivers with information about driving, maintaining and buying for fuel efficiency. The goal is to help drivers learn how they can both save money and the environment.
“The average Canadian driver idles for six to eight minutes a day,” says Therese Bombardier, program officer with DriverWiser. "If every Canadian driver reduced their idling time by just three minutes a day, in one year we’d save 1.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and 630 million litres of fuel.”
The Office of Sustainability is also in the final days of a survey to discover where/how the Dal campus is most vulnerable to climate change. Take 10 minutes to fill out the survey (which concludes Friday, June 4) and let them know about your experiences with weather events on campus. Not only will you be helping Dal adapt to the changing climate, you’ll also have a chance to win a Dalhousie umbrella.
Dal's idling "hot spots"In the summer and fall of 2009, the Office of Sustainability sought to find out which campus locations had the most excessive idling. Staff and volunteers did "stake outs" at key hot spots and recorded the activity. Here's the worst offending locations from the fall survey, all of which are likely to have new "Idle-Free" signage this September:
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